In rural areas of the developing world, billions of people remain mired in poverty and dependent upon small, subsistence-level farms as their only source of food. These subsistence farmers, reliant on their harvests to feed themselves and their families, lack the agricultural equipment needed to increase the productivity of their harvests. The low productivity of these subsistence farms means that farmers are unable to grow any surplus of produce that could be sold at the marketplace, preventing these farmers from earning the income that would allow them to invest in their farms, purchase healthcare and education for themselves and their families, and progress out of poverty towards the middle class.
Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in Asia, presents a vivid illustration of the plight faced by Third World subsistence farmers. Plagued by decades of conflict, almost eighty percent of Cambodia's population lives in rural areas, with most relying on farming as their only source of food and income. Dependent on their harvests to feed their families, many Cambodian farm families suffer from malnutrition and lack basic human necessities such as healthcare and educational opportunities.
In addition to its low levels of income, Cambodia's environment presents further challenges to would-be farmers. Agriculture in Cambodia consists almost entirely of the cultivation of rice with no rotation of other crops, which has resulted in high levels of soil degradation. Furthermore, the geographical location of Cambodia has left its farmers dependent on the yearly monsoon, which only provides sufficient levels of irrigation for seven months each year. During the five-month dry season, the water table sinks to seven meters below the surface, making it extremely difficult for farmers to irrigate their fields and grow crops, such as vegetables, that can serve as an alternative to the rice that has so severely depleted the soil.
A solution to the challenges faced by Cambodian farmers is the development and distribution of human-powered pumps which would enable these farmers to access water from wells during the dry season for use in irrigating their fields. Such a pump would enable these farmers to grow crops like vegetables year-round, nourishing the soil that has been degraded by rice monoculture and providing greatly improved yields that can raise the income of farmers and lift them and their families out of poverty.
To be effective in Cambodia, where farmers often travel several miles to fields by motorcycle, a pump must be relatively lightweight and compact, so that it can be transported by motorbike to the field and then carried by hand to the location of the well or other water source. Additionally, the pump must have sufficient power to pump water from at least seven vertical meters below ground, the average depth of the water table of the Tonle Sap and Mekong floodplains of Cambodia during the dry season, and to distribute that water over the surface area of a field up to one hectare in size.
While many varieties of water pumps exist, no known existing designs are sufficient to meet the needs of would-be Cambodian farmers. Bucket pumps and rope pumps that can draw water from wells are immovable, limited to use at the single location of the well where they are constructed, and result in farmers being forced to carry buckets of water to their fields. Centrifugal pumps, which are widely used by farmers in developed nations, must be cast out of metal using specialized manufacturing equipment unavailable in developing nations such as Cambodia. Diaphragm pumps require specialized types of rubber with unique properties, material which is unavailable and too expensive to rural farmers in developing nations.
Several varieties of pumps exist that seek to address the irrigation needs faced by the rural farmers of Cambodia. One such pump, the MoneyMaker, has been developed by the organization KickStart International. However, this device fails to solve challenges faced by Cambodian farmers. Manufactured from stainless steel and featuring two piston cylinders, the KickStart pump is made of materials unavailable to local Cambodian manufacturers, and therefore must be manufactured in foreign countries such as China. The amount and type of materials required to construct this pump design make the pump too expensive to be affordable to rural Cambodians, especially when shipping costs and tariffs are taken into consideration. Additionally, vital components of this pump design are inaccessible to users wishing to perform maintenance or repair. The valves of the MoneyMaker pump, for example, are located in a welded box and cannot be accessed for replacement or repair. Therefore, if these components fail, the entire pump must be replaced, not just the damaged component. What is needed is a pump having modular components such that individual parts may be removed from the pump should they require maintenance, repair or replacement.
As discussed above, existing devices for pumping water suffer from many deficiencies. Existing water pumps that are made of materials accessible and affordable to rural farmers in developing countries are immobile and must be constructed to serve a specific well, leaving farmers forced to carry buckets of water to their fields no better off than before. Existing designs for more mobile and lightweight pumping devices are too expensive to import and too complex to manufacture in developing nations, and the components of these designs are difficult to repair or replace. As a result, there remains a need for a water pump that does not suffer from the drawbacks common to these existing water pump designs. The present invention, described in detail below, solves the need in the art for such a device.